§ Mr. MalinsTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what progress has been made on the Government's initiative announced in February for improving life for people in residential homes; whether he proposes to take690W any further action on the recommendations of the committee on residential care chaired by Lady Wagner; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mrs. Virginia BottomleyIn February we announced our intention to launch a development programme aimed at improving life for people in residential homes, based on recommendations of the committee chaired by Lady Wagner.
We have appointed five agencies to carry forward important recommendations from the committee's report "Residential Care: A Positive Choice". Work has now begun and will continue for the next three years at a total cost of around £2.2 million. This initiative aims at better training for staff in homes, better information for the public in making choices, effective, accessible and widely known arrangements for making suggestions and complaints, a closer relationship between homes and their local communities and better management of homes. Cost-effective ways of achieving these objectives will be explored through a wide range of development projects. The results of these activities will be made widely and regularly available to national and local agencies concerned and will be independently assessed.
The thrust of many of the committee's recommendations, for example on the organisation and funding of community care, has been taken into account in the wider context of community care development and will be reflected in the forthcoming White Paper.
The committee's recommendations on setting and maintaining standards have been incorporated in our proposals to achieve even-handedness in inspection of residential care homes, as between independent and local authority homes, through the setting up of inspection units in social services departments at arms length from the management of local authorities' own homes. Issues concerning children and young people, on which the Wagner committee made recommendations, are covered in the Children Bill, including education and health needs of children in care, keeping siblings together wherever practicable and appropriate, the needs of ethnic minority groups and accommodation for young people leaving care. And we are considering issuing guidance on encouraging and enabling people in residential care homes to manage their own finances where they are capable of doing so.
The Wagner committee has done a valuable service in pointing the way to better standards. The Government are playing their part in responding to its report. We also look to local authorities and private and voluntary agencies, to whom much of the report was primarily addressed, to take those messages to heart and act on them.
The selected agencies and their fields of activity are as follows:
- Basic training programmes for care staff: the National Institute for Social Work;
- Ways of increasing contacts between homes and their local communities and a wider role for volunteers: the Social Care Association (Education);
- Methods of self-assessment and performance evaluation by managers: the Polytechnic of North London;
- Ways of providing information to help people in choosing a home or alternative to residential care: the Policy Studies Institute.
The department of government, Brunel university will co-ordinate this activity, provide an information service and publish an independent assessment of the programmes.
691WIn addition the Department's social services inspectorate will develop procedures for dealing with suggestions and complaints.
692W
National Health Service staff in post in England nursing and midwifery by district health authority1 at 30 September 1988 Whole lime equivalent2 Total England 403,880 Northern RHA HQ 70 Hartlepool 860 North Tees 1,280 South Tees 2,650 East Cumbria 1,600 South Cumbria 1,120 West Cumbria 1,160 Darlington 1,170 Durham 1,180 North West Durham 730 South West Durham 1,620 Northumberland 3,170 Gateshead 1,400 Newcastle 5,200 North Tyneside 970 South Tyneside 970 Sunderland 2,600 Yorkshire RHA HQ 120 Hull 2,660 East Yorkshire 1,610 Grimsby 1,300 Scunthorpe 1,240 Northallerton 530 York 2,300 Scarborough 890 Harrogate 1,170 Bradford 2,740 Airedale 1,440 Calderdale 1,570 Huddersfield 1,990 Dewsbury 970 Leeds Western 3,420 Leeds Eastern 3,310 Wakefield 2,000 Pontefract 1,070 Trent RHA HQ 100 North Derbyshire 2,270 South Derbyshire 3,980 Leicestershire 6,570 North Lincolnshire 2,230 South Lincolnshire 2,110 Bassetlaw 680 Central Nottingham 2,250 Nottingham 5,670 Barnsley 1,700 Doncaster 2,560 Rotherham 1,850 Sheffield 6,310 East Anglian RHA HQ 50 Cambridge 2,600 Peterborough 1,780 West Suffolk 1,660 East Suffolk 2,640 Norwich 3,950 Great Yarmouth and Waveney 1,410 West Norfolk and Wisbech 1,300 Huntingdon 770 North West Thames RHA HQ 3— North Bedfordshire 1,380 South Bedfordshire 1,900 North Hertfordshire 1,020 East Hertfordshire 1,050 North West Hertfordshire 3,060 South West Hertfordshire 1,240 693W
Whole time equivalent2 Barnet 2,870 Harrow 1,430 Hillingdon 2,050 Hounslow and Spelthorne 2,030 Ealing 1,760 Brent 2,000 Paddington and North Kensington 2,050 Riverside 3,910 North East Thames RHA HQ 110 Basildon and Thurrock 2,180 Mid-Essex 1,910 North East Essex 2,980 West Essex 1,670 Southend 2,000 Barking, Havering and Brent 3,350 Hampstead 2,120 Bloomsbury 3,210 Islington 1,510 City and Hackney 2,620 Newham 1,410 Tower Hamlets 2,390 Enfield 1,500 Harringey 1,350 Redbridge 1,520 Waltham Forest 2,660 South East Thames RHA HQ 10 Brighton 2,250 Eastbourne 1,700 Hastings 1,280 South East Kent 1,610 Canterbury and Thanet 2,590 Dartford & Gravesend 1,880 Maidstone 1,580 Medway 1,640 Tunbridge Wells 1,890 Bexley 1,580 Greenwich 2,050 Bromley 2,180 West Lambeth 2,370 Camberwell 2,310 Lewisham and North Southwark 3,550 South West Thames RHA HQ 120 North West Surrey 1,640 West Surrey and North East Hampshire 1,340 South West Surrey 1,750 Mid-Surrey 1,820 East Surrey 1,740 Chichester 1,370 Mid-Downs 1,780 Worthing 1,570 Croydon 2,300 Kingston and Esher 1,550 Richmond, Twickenham and R. 1,260 Wandsworth 2,940 Merton and Sutton 2,590 Wessex RHA HQ 10 East Dorset 3,210 West Dorset 1,820 Portsmouth and South East 3,930 Southampton and South West 4,180 Winchester 1,310 Basingstoke and North Hampshire 1,780 Salisbury 1,440 Swindon 1,860 Bath 3,120 Isle of Wight 1,030 Oxford RHA HQ 70 East Berkshire 2,310 West Berkshire 2,870 Aylesbury Vale 1,710 Wycombe 1,250 Milton Keynes 730 694W
Whole time equivalent2 Kettering 1,510 Northampton 2,410 Oxfordshire 4,150 South Western RHA HQ 80 Bristol and Weston 3,470 Frenchay 2,690 Southmead 2,160 Cornwall and Isles of Scilly 2,900 Exeter 3,300 North Devon 1,000 Plymouth 2,890 Torbay 1,850 Cheltenham 1,350 Gloucester 2,490 Somerset 3,130 West Midlands RHA HQ 130 Bromsgrove and Redditch 1,150 Herefordshire 1,200 Kidderminster 1,280 Worcester 1,700 Shropshire 2,740 Mid-Staffordshire 1,760 North-Staffordshire 4,190 South-Staffordshire 1,900 Rugby 460 North Warwickshire 1,490 South Warwickshire 1,910 Central Birmingham 2,860 East Birmingham 1,400 North Birmingham 1,380 South Birmingham 2,610 West Birmingham 2,540 Coventry 2,600 Dudley 2,070 Sandwell 1,490 Solihull 1,150 Walsall 1,960 Wolverhampton 2,210 Mersey RHA HQ 70 Chester 1,730 Crewe 1,790 Halton 630 Macclesfield 1,580 Warrington 2,350 Liverpool 5,160 St. Helens and Knowsley 2,580 Southport and Formby 1,230 South Sefton 2,290 Wirral 2,770 North Western RHA HQ 120 Lancaster 2,120 Blackpool Wyre and Fylde 2,540 Preston 2,490 Blackburn Hymburn and Ribb 1,930 Burnley Pendle and Rossend 3,240 West Lancaster 920 Chorley and South Ribble 610 Bolton 1,900 Bury 1,100 North Manchester 2,450 Central Manchester 2,070 South Manchester 3,120 Oldham 1,480 Rochdale 1,170 Salford 3,320 Stockport 2,160 Tameside and Glossop 1,420 Trafford 1,230 Wigan 2,110 London Post Graduate SHA 's The Hospital for Sick Children 1,240 The National Hospital 410
Whole time equivalent2 Moorfields Eye Hospital 190 The Bethlem Royal Hospital 720 The National Heart and Chest 640 The Royal Marsden Hospital 460 Hammersmith and Queen Charlottes 1,230 Eastman Dental Hospital 10 LAS 3— BTS 70 PHLS 10 Other 10 1 Including unqualified nursing and midwifery staff and agency staff. 2 Figures independently rounded to nearest ten (10) whole time equivalents. 3 Indicates less than five (5) whole time equivalents. Source:Department of Health (SM13) annual census of NHs non-medical manpower.